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The waters of the Moon

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:04:33 +0000

There is water on the Moon. We've known that since 2009 and we keep finding evidence of more of the stuff. That's not the really fascinating part about this article by Joseph Stromberg. Instead, there two really cool things that you should learn: 1) The water on the Moon probably came from Earth and 2) the water on the Earth probably came from outer space.

Sometimes, you misplace your Moon dust

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:34:57 +0000

The University of California, Berkeley recently found 20 vials of Moon dust in an archival warehouse. Apparently, these were all loaned research samples that should have been returned to NASA more than 40 years ago. This is not the only institution to suffer from the same problem. At least 12 states had (and then lost) collections of small Moon rocks. Minnesota found theirs last year in a display case at the state Veteran Services Building, crowded into a cluster of lesser memorabilia, including an 8th-place award in a shooting competition. It could happen to anybody.

Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project: how you can help save historic space data

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:14:55 +0000

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) was started by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing in 2008. They obtained the original analog tape drives from lunar missions in the '60s, which were literally covered in dust in a farmer’s barn, and they also got their hands on a complete collection of Lunar Orbiter analog data tapes that held a full set of all images carried back to Earth by the five spacecraft that flew between 1966 and 67.

Amazing, historic stuff. But all of these old media formats are fragile, and preservation can be a long and tedious process.

Cowing and Wingo funded the archival effort themselves in the beginning, then secured some funding from NASA. But the NASA funding was modest, and has run out; the guys have been funding the project themselves, and they don't have the resources they need. They have exceeded the requirements of NASA’s funding, but just haven't been able to retrieve and digitally archive all of these irreplaceable historic space images—yet.

So they're crowdsourcing funds on RocketHub. They've raised about 1/3 of their goal at the time of this blog post, and they have only 5 days left.

Miles O'Brien did a "This week in Space" webshow episode about the project back in 2010; check it out above.

Below, more on the project from Cowing, who is also the guy behind NASAwatch.

The LOIRP team managed to obtain original tape drives from the 1960s (covered in dust in a farmer’s barn) and a full set of original Lunar Orbiter analog data tapes (threatened with erasure) containing all images sent back to Earth by the five spacecraft between 1966-67.
None of this had been functional or usable since the late 1960s.
From the onset the project has been run on a shoestring budget. The LOIRP effort is housed in an abandoned McDonalds burger joint at Moffett Field, California (also known as "McMoons").
The LOIRP folks used spare parts bought on eBay, discarded government equipment, new hardware reverse-engineered from math equations in 50 year old documentation, modern laptops, the expertise of retired engineers and scientists, and the dedication of young students.
Think of this as “Antique Roadshow” meets “The Right Stuff” in an Apple Store. They’ve also called this activity “technoarchaeology” and “dumpster diving for science”. A pirate flag has been displayed in the front window since they started.
With this unlikely assembly of people, hardware, and hacking they have been able to retrieve Lunar Orbiter images with far more resolution and dynamic range than was possible in the 1960s. Indeed, many of the images they have retrieved equal or exceed what the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is sending back from the Moon today. Taken together, this Lunar Orbiter imagery combined with LRO data, provides a time machine of sorts with which researchers can look at recent lunar history.
After five years the LOIRP team has optimized their hardware, software, and procedures so as to achieve an efficiency far greater than they initially possessed. In addition to capturing the remaining images, they still need to generate a formal submission of all images to NASA’s Planetary Data System.
Three weeks ago we began a crowd funding effort on RocketHub at http://www.rockethub.com/projects/14882-lunar-orbiter-image-recovery-project You will note that among the things we offer to supporters are rare photographs donated to the LOIRP by original Lunar Orbiter program participants specifically for the purpose of fundraising.
The fact that we have managed to pull all of this together still surprises us. Many people told us that this was impossible. However, if we stop this project, it is unlikely that this capability can ever be re-created.

UPDATE: From project co-lead Dennis Wingo:

I would like to thank all the boingboing folks who have so generously donated to our project.
We call what we are doing technoarcheology because we are literally digging up our technical past to restore it. It is said that only 1% of the literary works of the Greek and Roman civilizations have made it to us today. I would estimate that out of that 1% only 1% of the engineering and science works have made it to us today.
The Greeks were masterful mechanical engineers and the Romans were unsurpassed Civil Engineers. Just think if we had not lost that legacy.
This is what our project is all about, preserving the technical legacy of the American technical civilization.

A gravity map of the Moon

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:42:18 +0000

Gravity isn't uniform. Denser planets and objects in space — that is, things with more mass to them — experience a stronger pull of gravity. But even if you zoom in to the level of a single planet (or, in this case, our Moon), gravity isn't uniform all the way around. That's because the mass of the Moon isn't uniform, either. It varies, along with the topography. In some places, the Moon's crust is thicker. Those places have more mass, and thus, more gravitational pull.

This map, showing changes in density and gravity across the surface of the Moon, was made from data collected by Ebb and Flow — a matched set of NASA probes that mapped the Moon's gravitational field before being intentionally crashed on its surface last December. By measuring the gravitational field, these probes told us a lot about how the density of the Moon varies which, in turn, tells us a lot about topography.

You can read more about the probes (and see some videos they took of the lunar surface) at the NASA Visualization Explorer.

We left the moon 40 years ago today. Will we ever return?

Miles O'Brien — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:14:24 +0000

It was forty years today (at 22:54:37 UT) that human beings left the moon for the last time. Commander Gene Cernan's last words as stood on the moon were lofty, rehearsed and memorized:

"As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come (but we believe not too long into the future), I'd like to just say what I believe history will record: That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind."

His real last words uttered on the moon, just before hitting the button that would launch the "Challenger" Lunar Module carrying him and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt back to the orbiting Command Module "America" were more apt for a card-carrying member of the "Right Stuff Club".

"Okay, Jack, let's get this mutha outta here," said Cernan.

Cernan's autobiography "The Last Man on the Moon" is a great read. Among the things you might find surprising: Cernan crashed a Bell B-13 (M*A*S*H) helicopter into still water at Cape Canaveral in January of 1971 nearly killing himself.

He admits he was showboating for people on the beach. Chief Astronaut Deke Slayton covered for him, saying it was a mechanical malfunction. Had the real story come to the attention of Flight Director Chris Kraft, the last man on the moon might very well have been backup commander John Young.

Much to Cernan's chagrin, to this day he still holds that unique title. Why we have not returned is a long, complicated tale of politics and puny thinking.

Will we ever become a truly spacefaring nation? Hard to imagine as our "leaders" march us off the fiscal cliff. Maybe space is the answer. A cliff is meaningless in the absence of gravity.

My good friend Andrew Chaikin wrote the definitive historical account of the Apollo Missions, "A Man on the Moon". It is a must read for anyone interested in space.

Andy, who was there when Apollo 17 launched, has produced a nice video that offers a compelling argument for returning to the moon today. It makes me sad to watch it. But those of us who care about space exploration need to keep reminding the world why this is important.

Fallen Astronaut figure on the Moon

David Pescovitz — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:51:38 +0000

Seen above is the Fallen Astronaut, a tiny aluminum figurine that on August 1, 1971 the Apollo 15 crew placed on the Moon's surface with a plaque listing the names of 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who had died. Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck created the figure and later took a ton of shit from NASA for making replicas that he intended to sell. The space agency felt the commercialization went against their original understanding with Van Hoeydonck. "Fallen Astronaut" (Wikipedia, via Weird Universe)

November Eclipse

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:43:44 +0000

November Eclipse, a false color image of the moon shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by BB reader Jason Brown in New Zealand.

Report: Now that election's decided, NASA may announce new manned lunar mission

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 14:05:44 +0000

Space.com spoke to space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University, about rumors that NASA may soon unveil new manned moon missions.

"Plans have probably already been cleared with the Obama Administration but have been kept under wraps in case Republican candidate Mitt Romney won," according to Space.com.

As the Independent notes, these comments sync with remarks by NASA deputy chief Lori Garver at a conference in September. (via Jenny Winder)

Pink Floyd moon landing space jam, 1969: "Moonhead"

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:30:24 +0000

[Video Link]

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my new obsession with early to mid-era Pink Floyd oddities. Following the death of astronaut Neil Armstrong this weekend, the NYT Lede blog points to a special rarity: a moon landing jam session the band recorded at a BBC TV studio during the descent of Apollo 11, the first time human beings ever set foot on another world. David Gilmour in the Guardian:

It was a live broadcast, and there was a panel of scientists on one side of the studio, with us on the other. I was 23. The programming was a little looser in those days, and if a producer of a late-night programme felt like it, they would do something a bit off the wall. Funnily enough I’ve never really heard it since, but it is on YouTube. They were broadcasting the moon landing and they thought that to provide a bit of a break they would show us jamming. It was only about five minutes long. The song was called Moonhead — it’s a nice, atmospheric, spacey 12-bar blues.

More at the Lede. From the video upload description by "Psych Prog Folk Blues Garage":

A instrumental piece used for a tv-programme on the evening of the first moonlanding July 20, 1969. The programme was a used by the BBC in between the coverage of the actual moonlanding -and was called 'But what if it's made of green cheese'. The theme was the first verse and the coda, with various actors reading quotes and poetry about the moon over. The rest of the programme was information, discussions and sketches. Later in the show, Moonhead was performed uninterrupted. The music can be heard on the bootlegs 'With/Without' and 'Wavelenghts'. The song has also been known as 'Trip On Mars'.

Two thoughts: First, I really want a copy of those bootlegs. Second, holy crap, what if NASA events were accompanied by this kind of free-form live art happening today? How awesome would that be?

* The footage in this fan-made video appears to be from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, not from Apollo 11.

How the Eagle Landed: Grumman Construction Log, and a message to space (Apollo 11)

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:01:12 +0000

On the anniversary of Apollo 11, Steve Jurvetson posted an amazing, never-before-seen series of space artifacts. He writes:

On July 20, 1969, Eagle landed on the moon. These are the handwritten notes from the Grumman engineers as they pushed to complete Lunar Module LM-5 in 1968. On the last page, they learn than this particular Lunar Module would be the one to bring the first humans to the moon.
The Grumman Engineering Log served not only as an engineering notebook but also as an intercom between the day and night shift – separate teams that needed to push the ball forward from where the other left off. So we are offered a rare peek into the concerns, uncertainties and conversations that might have otherwise been quietly undocumented.
This log has informed the writing of Pellegrino’s book Chariots for Apollo, but only a few scholars have had access to these pages to date. Heritage reported that this original document is the only one in existence, with no copy on file anywhere. So I thought it would be good to make a color scan of the entire book, and make it available to all. So, here is the PDF file (8MB).
My hope is that we can collectively decode some of its mysteries, or better yet, find some of the engineers to see if it jogs their memories. There is a list of all of the engineers on p.2. We only have first initial and last names. So any insights to the full names or their whereabouts would be appreciated.
I am also hoping that space historians who come across interesting passages can share what they know in the comments below (with reference to date or page number). Are any of the part numbers significant, especially those swapped between the Apollo 9,11,12 and 13 Lunar Modules? I will also add a glossary of acronyms below as we decode them. Also, if anyone can OCR the hybrid handwriting, please do. Our attempts with free OCR tools have failed so far.

Here's the Flickr page, with lots more details, and lots more links.

At left, Steve with a prototype build of the first flagpole assembly on the moon.

"I brought it to Buzz Aldrin, and his eyes went wide," he says. "But from what I learned, there probably is no Apollo 11 flag on the moon today."

How exciting. Happy space-a-versary, everyone!

And here's another amazing artifact photographed by Steve, below: a silicon disc, FROM PLANET EARTH.

On the Flickr page for this photo, Steve writes:

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 took flight to the moon. In the days that preceded the launch, the U.S. scrambled to pull together the messages from Earth that would be left behind on the moon. This is the Apollo Goodwill Disc, and it was engineered to last long after the U.S. flag was destroyed."

This silicon disc contains etched letters (scanned and reduced 200x) from the leaders of the world’s nations. This is one of the discs produced by Sprague and retained by a Sprague manager; a second resides in the Smithsonian, and a third rests on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility, deposited there by Buzz Aldrin.
(Does anyone know if other builds remain intact? A Sprague press release says that of the handful of discs made, one was given to President Nixon and one to President Johnson).
It is a tricky subject matter for photography. I wanted to capture the angle-dependendent iridescence of the semiconductor thin films. The overhead light source reflects off the leather seat cushion, revealing the shift from green to purple that occurs at oblique angles.
This comes from the early days of the semiconductor industry, when Apollo consumed 50% of global production, and wafers were just 2” wide (the ultimate disc was cropped around the 1.5” metallized ring and placed in a aluminum case).

"We are on the fucking moon" (video)

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:54:15 +0000

[Video Link] Yesterday was the anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the moon in 1969, the first time humans ever set foot on another world. Today, we discover this long-lost footage and audio from that historic moment. (thanks, inkfumes!)

Lunar topography replicated in gorgeous fine art carvings

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 20:10:20 +0000

San Francisco-based artist Craig Dorety has a series of carvings that "represent segments of the moon's surface as found in the topograhical data from JAXA's Kayuga mission."

"Painstaking attention is paid to the relationship of crater groups in the composition of each carving," Craig explains. "Areas of special interest have a natural balance of crater to sea; rough to gentle in texture."

Shown above (and a detail, below): Mare Nectaris and associated topography, south of the moon's "sea of tranquility."

"It is carved in redgum, the wood of Liquidambar styraciflua," says Craig. "This wood has a dynamic coloration that produces strata that interact with the topology carving."

"I received the SF Awesome Grant in May for the lunar carvings and I plan to use the grant to re-fit my CNC router," he tells Boing Boing. "I use both a home-made CNC router and a LaserSaur to craft my objects. The Topography comes from NASA and via the LRO."

If you like this, you may also dig his Animated Light Objects. "The Light Objects animations are derived from still images of natural systems, like fire and water," he says. Craig has a solo exhibition reception in San Francisco that opens this Friday at:

LIGHT : SPACE : PERCEPTION
The JellyFish Gallery
1286 Folsom St, SF, CA (at 9th)
7/13/2012 -- 6:30PM - 10:30PM

Below, "Unknown Crater Set." "This work is of an unknown region of the moon," Craig explains. "It is carved from Black Walnut, a common North American wood. It's it is rich and dark brown and has a subtle grain."

Lunar Topography (craigdorety.com)

(thanks, Rocky Mullins!)

Gardening on the Moon

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:37:00 +0000

Frycook posted this fascinating video from the Apollo era on the BoingBoing Submitterator. The basic gist: Back in the day, NASA scientists tried exposing various crops—corn, lettuce, tobacco ... you know, the essentials—to moon dust. The plants weren't grown in the dust, exactly. Instead, it was scattered in their pots or rubbed on some of their leaves. In this study, the plants that were exposed seemed to grow faster than unexposed plants.

That's pretty interesting, so I dug around a little to find out more about these studies. Turns out, growing plants in lunar soil isn't quite as promising as the video makes it sound, but it's not a ridonculous idea, either. In 2010, scientists at the University of Florida published a review of all the Apollo-era research on this subject, which amounted to exactly three published studies. From that data, we can say that the plants weren't obviously affected in any seriously negative ways by their exposure to lunar soils—which is good—but we can't really say the plants grew better their terrestrial-only cousins, either.

In the end, and as recorded in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there were only three published primary studies of seeds, seedlings, and plants grown in contact with lunar materials. In those three cases, small amounts of lunar material were used, and the plants were relatively large. In general, the dusting of plants or the mixing of lunar fines with other support media makes plant interaction with the lunar material a small part of the plant experience. At no point were plants actually grown in lunar samples in the way that one might imagine, with the entire root structure growing through and in constant association with a lunar soil. It is no accident that the wording of most of the titles of the studies, as well as the careful discussion within the papers, refers to growth “in contact with” lunar samples—not “in” lunar samples. With only a small portion of the roots, for example, interacting with the lunar materials, it is likely that plant responses to the lunar materials were, therefore, quite attenuated due to the lack of an extensive plant/lunar soil interface. Biophysical issues, such as root penetration of dry and variously hydrated lunar sample types, were completely unaddressed. Thus, the effects of actual growth within lunar soils were simply not a part of the plant studies of the Apollo era.

On the other hand, in 2008 scientists with the European Space Agency tried growing marigolds in a medium of crushed rock—basically the much-cheaper equivalent of growing plants in moon "soil". There's no indication that the marigolds did better than those grown in real dirt, but they did grow and they did survive (even without any added fertilizer), which could be indirect evidence in support of the Moon gardeners of the future.

Watch the video on YouTube

Read a 1969 newspaper clipping about the NASA experiments

Read the 2010 review paper—available for free, in its entirety

Read a BBC story about the 2008 marigold experiment

Ring of Fire: 2012 annular eclipse video made from 700 individual photo frames

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 22 May 2012 00:32:07 +0000

[Video Link]

Boing Boing reader Cory Poole is a 33-year-old math and science teacher at University Preparatory School in Redding, CA. He sends in this beautiful video of yesterday's annular solar eclipse, and says:

This is a 60 second time-lapse video made from 700 individual frames through a Coronado Solar Max 60 Double Stacked Hydrogen Alpha Solar Telescope. The pictures were shot in Redding, CA, which was directly in the annular eclipse path. The filter on the telescope allows you to see the chromosphere which is a layer that contains solar prominences. The filter only allows light that is created when hydrogen atoms go from the 2nd excited state to the 1st excited state.

Annular solar eclipse this weekend: where to see it in the skies+online

Super Moon was, in fact, pretty super (big photo gallery)

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:19:33 +0000

REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon

The full "super Moon", scientifically known as a "perigee moon", rises over Los Angeles, California May 5, 2012. A "super Moon" lit up Saturday's night sky in a once-a-year cosmic show, overshadowing a meteor shower from remnants of Halley's Comet, the U.S. space agency NASA said. The Moon looked especially big and bright, because it reached its closest spot to Earth at the same time it was in its full phase, NASA said. Below, the full moon rises behind a mosque as birds fly in Amman.

More photos of the "super Moon" as seen around the world this weekend follow, below.

REUTERS/Ali Jarekji

REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

Wrangler Nate Cummins rides by moonlight, the night before the "Super Moon" during Montana Horses' annual horse drive outside Three Forks, Montana.

REUTERS/Jumana El Heloueh

A full moon rises over office towers in Dubai Media City in Dubai.

REUTERS/Darryl Webb

A runner makes his way along a trail on a butte in front of the "super Moon" at Papago Park in Phoenix.

REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

The full "super Moon," scientifically known as a "perigee moon," is pictured over the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez

A view of the "super Moon" is seen above a cathedral tower in Guatemala City.

REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih

A full moon is seen behind the minaret of Mohamed Ali mosque, in Islamic Cairo.

REUTERS/Mark Blinch

The "super Moon" rises over some apartment buildings in Toronto.

Moon boxes and mystery men

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:38:08 +0000

See the box in this photo? It's more interesting than it looks. This is a box that went to the Moon.

Astronauts used the boxes to collect and bring back to Earth nearly 50 pounds of moon rocks and soil ... Each of the boxes was machined from a single piece of aluminum, "seamless except for the lid opening, which had a metalized gasket that firmly sealed when closed."

The photo comes from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.—a research facility that participated in the Manhattan Project and later was involved in designing equipment for the Apollo Project. Journalist Frank Munger writes about Y-12 and other parts of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

This photo, which he posted on his blog, is also interesting because nobody knows who the three guys in the photo are. Munger was hoping that Boingers might be able to offer some leads.

Read Frank Munger's blog post

Whatever happened to Russia's Moon lander?

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:23:28 +0000

The United State won the race to put a man on the Moon. But we weren't the first to land anything on the Moon. That prize went to the Soviet Union, which successfully put Luna 2 on the surface of the Moon in 1959.

Their later missions were less successful and the USSR never made it past unmanned moon landers. Even some of those failed. Last week, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the remains of two of these Luna missions, still sitting on the Moon. At Vice, Amy Teitel talks about the Luna program and what NASA has learned about why it failed.

 Luna 23 met a similar fate. Launched on October 28, 1974, it malfunctioned halfway through its mission and ended up crashing on the surface in the Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crisis in the northwest on the Earth-facing side). The spacecraft stayed in contact with Earth after its hard landing, but it couldn’t get a sample. Mission scientists expected the spacecraft had tipped over as a result of its landing, but without a way to image the moon at a high resolution, they weren’t able to confirm, and the mystery endured.

It turns out they were indeed right. The whole spacecraft is still on the surface, its ascent engine never fired, and high resolution image from LRO’s cameras show the spacecraft lying on its side.

Read the rest at Vice

That's no moon. It's Newt Gingrich

Rob Beschizza — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:10:57 +0000

BB reader Ipo sends in an illustration of future U.S. president and moon lord Newt Gingrich, based on this photo by Reuters' Eric Thayers.

The story of the Apollo 11 moon landing, as told through data (video)

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:34:46 +0000

[video link]

This data visualization of the Apollo 11 moon mission gathers social and technical data from the 1969 lunar landing in video form. The horizontal axis is an interactive timeline.

The horizontal axis is an interactive timeline. The vertical axis is divided into several sections, each corresponding to a data source. At the top, commentators are present in narratives from Digital Apollo and NASA technical debriefings. Just below are the members of ground control. The middle section is a log-scale graph stretching from Earth (~10E9 ft. away) to the Moon. Utterances from the landing CAPCOM, Duke, the command module pilot, Collins, the mission commander, Armstrong, and the lunar module pilot, Aldrin, are plotted on this graph. The graph is partially overlaid on a composite image of the lunar surface.

More about the data presented, and the story told, at the project's Vimeo page. The project comes from the MIT Laboratory for Automation, Robotics, and Society, and was directed by David Mindell. Via Maria Popova. As noted on Flowing Data, my only disappointment is that they didn't get to the "One small step for [a] man" part!

Additional credits: Visualization Design by Yanni Loukissas, and Francisco Alonso served as Research Assistant.

By the light of the super full moon

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:46:56 +0000

This photo was taken last March 19 in Cordoba, Spain. Photographer Paco Bellido captured a particularly special full moon—it appeared larger than any full moon had in 20 years. NASA explains:

Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon's orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee). Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon's orbit. The full Moon of March 19th occurs less than one hour away from perigee--a near-perfect coincidence1 that happens only 18 years or so.

Via Catherine Laplace-Builhe

Russian space caves on the Moon

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:34:36 +0000

Some Russian scientists want to build a space colony inside a network of caves on the Moon. No, really. It's hard to tell, from the Reuters story, how much support this plan actually has from the people who hold the purse strings.

The "Moon Buggy Mission," Apollo 15

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:13:53 +0000

This week marks the 40th anniversary for Apollo 15, the less famous of manned lunar missions including Apollo 11, Apollo 13 ("NASA's finest hour"), and Apollo 14 (the one where Alan Shepard played golf on the moon). Ben Cosgrove of LIFE points us to a related gallery of classic images, and explains:

While Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the lunar surface was mind-blowing, the idea of Irwin and Scott cruising around on a 450-pound moon buggy that they'd carted a quarter-million miles from Earth -- during a basically flawless mission when Scott and Irwin spent three full days on the moon's surface -- makes XV the coolest of all the Apollo missions.